2kiwis

Another weekend another festival. As in the last couple of years we attended the Ben & Jerry’s Festival, held on Clapham Common. Last year we thought that it was getting a bit too hip, too many teenagers (my how old we are now) and not enough of the laid back family atmosphere we had experienced the first time round. This year is was a slightly older crowd, many with babies or young kids in tow, and it was easy to lie back and relax. The free ice-cream also helps make it a good time.

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Ben & Jerry’s Festival

Musically it was better than last year with a few acts I wanted to see. I got close to the stage to see Florence and the Machine perform and Florence is…well, hard to describe. Take the innocence of early Bjork, throw in some Kate Bush warbling, some bluesy lyrics and the energy of a youngster with some kookiness also borrowed from the Icelandic music queen and you’ll get close. It was certainly hard to not watch Florence as she sang and spun/pranced around the stage. Definitely one to watch, especially as she doesn’t even have a record label at the moment.

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Florence and the Machine

The next act I went to the stage for was the Delays, a favourite from the Wireless Festival a few weeks back. Again we had a lot of energy, this time coming with sonic pop vibes and catchy lyrics. Very enjoyable and both the crowd and band seemed very happy.

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Delays

I also went forward to sample the Guillemots and while they were good, I’m not sure I’m convinced I like the majority of their music. The singles are good but the rest of their tracks I just find myself not listening too, I get distracted easily when the filler is playing.

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Guillemots

Finally, a few random thumbnails which may or may not be the same as the above (there are 20 photos in the gallery, it could be any four):

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We didn’t stay to see the last act and had a good, quick and smooth journey home. Summer is finally here properly and it’s hot and sticky at home with high twenties forecast for the next few days. Less than five weeks until we fly out now, so this was probably our last live music in London. I guess there will be a few ‘lasts’ over the coming weeks.

The weekend just gone we spent the Saturday evening with Bindi and Corey’s place, having dinner with Kathy, Sharon and our hosts. It was a night of pleasant talk and good food and we stayed the night so we could be close to Heathrow in the morning. We had offered to pick up my Aunty and Uncle, Frances and Mervn, and take them up to Grantham so they could meet their new grandchild Isabella.

The plane was due in around 7am but thankfully (for us anyway) it was delayed. We met at Terminal 3 and loaded up the car before heading north. There was a delay for roadworks on the M1 and we had a break at motorway services to grab a bite to eat. We got to Grantham mid afternoon.

Jenny and Darren were outside with Isabella when we arrived and the afternoon involved everyone talking about Isabella, the birth, the house and garden, others who had visited and everything in between. we said our goodbyes as evening came on, wanting to get home before dark.

Jenny with Isabella

Family

Last night we were lucky enough to attend day 22 of the 2008 iTunes Festival being held at Koko. This series of concerts had a number of artists playing for competition winners, no tickets could be bought. This night saw Seth Lakeman and Suzanne Vega on the bill and I had won tickets (Keryn and I entered 4 or 5 prize draws between us and got one pair of tickets).

This week is the most convincing simulacrum of Summer that London has had so far this year and it was nice and sunny waiting in the queue. We were granted access to the venue around 7:30pm and made our way to the stage, collecting our lanyards with a voucher for 10 free iTunes downloads attached. We were stood right at the front by the stage barrier…and then waited some more. About 20 minutes before Seth started some of the official photographers started appearing and I recognised one. I had met Andy at the Bush Hall when I saw Beth Rowley and we had chatted about various things photography. He noticed me at the Wireless Festival and we talked then and he immediately recognised me and we got to talking once more. It was good to talk to someone, Keryn and I were getting a little bored at this stage. Keryn was actually sitting down to rest her back (Keryn would have moved to the back to find a seat, but couldn’t face fighting through the crowd – I don’t think Keryn will be attending many more standing gigs). Andy has a website which you can see here:

http://www.lowlightphoto.co.uk/

First up was Seth Lakeman and immediately he got the crowd going with a mid-tempo ho-down. Seth is quite electrifying on stage, obviously enjoying himself and putting all his energy into singing, playing and moving around. As the opening act the set was only 9 songs long it seemed over very quickly, but the crowd seemed happy.

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Seth Lakeman performing at the iTunes Festival 2008

After a break and a short promo video Suzanne was on stage with the same band as when i saw her last week. This time they had a huge stage to work with and the lighting was much better. The crowd warmed quickly and Suzanne seemed amused by the various comments she got between songs. She also talked quite a bit about many of the songs, giving the inspiration behind many tracks (her first boyfriend, from Liverpool; playing solitaire on the computer). It was good, though the already mentioned back issues for Keryn meant she didn’t enjoy it too much. We were also a lot more crowded by those around us for this set – people weren’t nasty, there was just no personal space any more.

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Suzanne Vega performing at the iTunes Festival 2008

The journey home went smoothly and we were in Brentwood shortly after 1am, so it was a long day.